." Mrs Jolley must have done some very quick thinking, for her eyes shifted in such a way. Then she sat forward in her soft blue chenille. "But I do believe," she said. "Because I am a mother." It was most extraordinary, but Mrs Flack's tongue began sticking straight out of her mouth, the tip of it curled slightly up. She dropped her teacup. She was making noises of an uncommon kind. Mrs Jolley rose, and went and slapped her friend's wrists. "There!" she said. "There is no need, you know, to create. I am one that understands. Look," she said, and stooped. "The cup! It is not broken. Isn't that just luck!" But Mrs Flack was looking right through the wall. "It is what takes hold of you," she said. "A person is not responsible for all that happens." It could have been the presence of Mrs Jolley which made her add, slower, "That is-not everybody is responsible for every think." Mrs Jolley did not like to play the role of conscience, but since it had been thrust upon her, she did her best. From beneath the pale blue eiderdown she would hear that poor, guilty soul, her friend, get up several times a night, almost as if her bladder-though that was one part of her which Mrs Flack herself had forgotten to accuse. At all events, the condemned woman would wander through her temporary abode, touching objects, trailing her dressing gown of beige. For Mrs Flack was all of a beige colour now. Worst of all, as she drifted in the dark, she would know that her conscience was stretched beneath a pale blue eiderdown, waiting to tangle with her thoughts. Left alone, she might have found refreshment by dwelling at times on the pleasures of sin, for remorse need not be all dry, even in a shrivelled sinner. And Mrs Flack was that. Indeed, her breasts would not have existed if it had not been for coming to an agreement with her vest. Which night would cancel. The knife of time descended again, and all the fumbling, bungling, exquisite agonies of fulness might only have been illusion. "If I was you," Mrs Jolley once advised at breakfast, "I would consider asking the chemist to recommend a reliable pill." "I will not drug myself," Mrs Flack replied. "You will never persuade me it is right. It is not. It is not ethical." "Oh, I will not try to _persuade__! It was only for your own good," Mrs Jolley protested. "I cannot bear to watch a human being suffer." And averted her eyes. Or watched, instead, her victim's toast. "Sometimes I wonder whether I am all that good for you," she murmured, thoughtful. Without looking up, but watching. "Not good?" Mrs Flack stirred, dry as toast. "Whether our two personalities do not click, like," Mrs Jolley explained. "I would go away if I could convince myself it was the case. Never ever did I think of going away, not even when you was unkind, dear, but would consider it now, if I thought it would be in any way beneficial to another." Mrs Jolley did not look. She listened to hear the silence expostulate in pain. Then Mrs Flack moved, her chair was bumping on the lino, her slippers had discovered grit. For a moment Mrs Jolley suspected her friend might have revived. "I have often wondered," said Mrs Flack, "why you did not think to go, and your good home, let at a nominal rent, to a friend. And your three daughters so affectionate. And all the grand-kiddies. All the advantages. All sacrificed for poor me." So that Mrs Jolley no longer suspected, she knew that Mrs Flack was escaping, was stronger than her fate. So Mrs Jolley blew her nose. "It is not the advantages," she said. "It is the memories." It was the tune, she had remembered, on some old banjo, that made Mrs Jolley water. Mrs Flack cut the crust off her toast, and freed her fingers of the crumbs. "If you was to go, of course I would suffer," she admitted. Mrs Jolley hung her head, in gratitude, or satisfaction. She might, perhaps, have been mistaken. "I would suffer, wondering," said Mrs Flack, "how you was makin' out, down there, in that nice home, with all that family, and memories of your hubby who has passed on." Then Mrs Jolley actually cried. Remembering the hurdy-gurdy tunes of life made her more assiduous. Frequently she would jump up and scrub the scullery out at night. She wrote letters, and tore them up. She would walk to the post-office, and back. Or to the chemist's. "If someone told me you had gone away," Mrs Flack remarked, "I would believe it." "It is the weather," said Mrs Jolley. "It unsettles you." "Bad news, perhaps. There is nothing so unsettling as a letter," suggested Mrs Flack. Mrs Jolley did not answer, and Mrs Flack watched the little soft white down that moved very slightly on her friend's cheeks, with emotion, or a draught. The two women would listen to each other intolerably, but could not refrain from such a pleasure. One day, when Mrs Jolley had gone to the chemist's, Mrs Flack entered her friend's room-only, of course, it was Mrs Flack's-and began to act as though she were drowning, but might just be saved. Her hands were, in fact, frenzied, but found, for her salvation, under the handkerchief sachet which some kiddy had embroidered, a letter, perhaps _the__ letter. Mrs Flack was foolish with achievement. She held the page so close, closer than she need have. How she drank it down, in gulps of visible words: Dear Mum [Mrs Flack read, or regurgitated], I received your letter last week. You will wonder why I have not answered quicker, but was giving the matter consideration-Dot and Elma as much as me. Fred also had to be told, as you will understand, it concerns him so very closely. He is sitting here in the lounge-room with me as I write, listening to some Light Music. Well, Mum, to put it plain, none of us think it is a good idea. You know what people's nerves are when living on top of one another. Elma is particularly cramped for space, Dot and Arch are always paying something off, if not several articles at once-I wonder they ever keep track of the dockets. Well, that is how the others are placed. As for Fred, he said he would have no part of any plan to bring you to live under the same roof. He just would not, you know how stubborn Fred can be. Well, Mum, it all sounds pretty hard. I will admit that, and perhaps it is. I will admit you are our mother. We are the ungrateful daughters, anyone would say, of the mother who made the sacrifices. Yes, Mum, and I think perhaps the biggest sacrifice you ever made was Dad. Not that any blood was let. It was all done clean and quiet. Nobody read about it in the papers. But I will never forget his face the night he died of married love, which is sometimes also called coronary occlusion. There, I have said it-with my own hubby sitting in the room, waiting to read what I have wrote. I am not afraid. Because we expect the least, we have found something in each other to respect. I know that Fred would not tread on yours truly, even if he discovered I was just a slug. That is the great temptation, Mum, that you was never able to resist, you and other human beings. There you have it, then. The kids are good. I am sorry if your friend is so very awful, but perhaps she will bear further looking into. Every mirror has its double. With remembrances from Your daughter MERLE P. S. Who was driven to it, Mum. Mrs Flack had only once witnessed an indecent act. This could have been the second. On which the drawer stuck. She had shot it back crooked, but straightened it at last. When Mrs Jolley returned she noticed that her friend appeared to have solved one of the many riddles, and was not altogether pleased with the answer. But she herself could not care. She volunteered, "I am going to lay down for a while. It is those sinuses." "Yes, dear," answered Mrs Flack. "I will bring you a cup of tea." "No!" Mrs Jolley discouraged. "I will lie and sniff something up, that Mr Broad has given me." They did, in fact, from then on, bring each other endless cups of tea, for which each showed herself to be grateful. It did not, however, prevent Mrs Jolley more than once, emptying hers down the lavatory, or Mrs Flack from pouring hers, on several occasions, into the _monstera deliciosa__, after giving the matter thought. Thought was a knife they no longer hesitated to try upon themselves, whereas in the past it had almost invariably been used upon another. "That handkerchief sachet which I have, with the pansies on it, and which you must have seen, dear," Mrs Jolley once remarked. Mrs Flack coughed dry. "Yes, dear, I seem to have noticed." "That," said Mrs Jolley, "was embroidered for me by little Deedree, Elma's eldest." "I never ever owned a handkerchief sachet," Mrs Flack considered, "but for many years retained a small bottle full of first teeth." "Oh!" cried Mrs Jolley, almost in pain; she would have so loved to see. "And what became of that bottle?" "I threw it out," said Mrs Flack, "at last. But sometimes wonder whether I ought to have done." Night thoughts were cruellest, and often the two women, in their long, soft, trailing gowns, would bump against each other in the passages, or fingers encounter fingers, and they would lead each other gently back to the origins of darkness. They were desperately necessary to each other in threading the labyrinth. Without proper guidance, a soul in hell might lose itself.